ShowCase: Parti Wall, Hanging Green by Young Architects Boston Group

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Ten young architecture and design firms are collaborating on the creation of a prototype green wall in preparation for the arrival of over 25,000 visitors to Boston for the national convention of the American Institute of Architects in May 2008. The prototype is intended to transform a blank brick wall into a lush and green environment. The team aims to generate awareness for underutilized sites in Boston and to offer design solutions that apply sustainable principles for improving public space and creating healthy neighborhoods in the city.

The outdoor installation, named “Parti Wall, Hanging Green,” will be suspended from the newly converted loft building known as The 1850, located at 90 Wareham Street in Boston’s South End. The five-story-high planted structure will face Wareham Street across from the pinkcomma gallery, where an exhibition of the installation’s collaborative design process and works of these ten firms will be on display.

Tending to the crops, members of YABG testing different varieties of "green" being grown on a felt substrate. Eric Howeler, J. Meejin Yoon and Anthony Piermarini.

Mats of Seedum being cut into smaller panels.

Seedum panels are sewn onto a mesh substrate.

The "pixelated" Seedum panels, fastened to cables are laid out on the site.
The new green structure will be experimental and educational in purpose. A metal cable system will support planted panels of varying dimensions, allowing the team to test the performance of systems and plant types for New England’s climate and for permanent installations in the future.

In January of 2008, the ten firms formed the Young Architects Boston Group. Since that time, they have been meeting regularly to conceive and plan the installation. “This collaboration allows us to create something visual to welcome the AIA to Boston,” remarked Elizabeth Whittaker, principal of Merge Architects. “But more important, it shows passionate interest among young architects and educators in using design and research to address the pressing social, urban, and climate issues we face today.” These emerging designers have pooled resources in order to achieve more as a group than an individual firm could on its own. The group follows a non-hierarchical structure of collaborative participants working as volunteers.

Hanging the panels with a boom lift. Each panel is suspended from a threaded rod. The panels are free to move independently in the wind to minimize the wind load.

Another column of panels goes in. The overall pattern is legible from a distance, showing the fade of green panels and the brick texture behind.

The prototype will illustrate how Boston’s scattered brick surfaces could become opportunities for zero footprint public art that improves the city visually and environmentally. “The wall will be both a changing urban artwork and a public demonstration of the possibilities for greening a city like Boston,” stated Anthony Piermarini, a principal of Studio Luz. “Our urban center has hundreds of exposed brick party walls that face onto lifeless parking lots. We think of this project as a chance to transform those parking lots into hanging gardens.”

The finished installation.

The finished installation.

The finished installation.

Elevation and Section of the vertical park showing the green gradient pattern, modules, and dimensions.
The installation “Parti Wall, Hanging Green” will be on view from May 15 until late June. The related exhibition at pinkcomma gallery will open on May 16 and run through June 6.

Young Architects Boston Group

The YAB Group includes ten design firms established within the last six years: Ground ; Höweler + Yoon Architecture ; LinOldhamOffice ; Merge Architects ; MOS ; over,under ; SsD ; Studio Luz ; UNI ; and Utile . This younger generation of designers, which is part of a rising alternative design culture in Boston and nationwide, is notable for working collaboratively to realize projects that benefit from many approaches and background experiences. The principals represent the remarkable cultural diversity of the emerging Boston design field. Nearly all came to the city from elsewhere in the United States and internationally, including principals who were born in Canada, Colombia, Egypt, Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. Most of the collaborators are also teachers, who presently hold faculty posts at Carnegie Mellon University, Harvard University, Illinois Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northeastern University, Rhode Island School of Design, Wentworth Institute of Technology, and Yale University.

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